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An Post seeks postage price rise

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  • 23-08-2004 12:45pm
    #1
    Our man in Havana
    Closed Accounts Posts: 29,476 ✭✭✭✭


    http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0823/anpost.html
    An Post seeks postage price hike

    23 August 2004 09:35
    An Post has confirmed that it has sought an increase in postage rates from the communications regulator, ComReg.

    Speaking on RTÉ radio, the company's Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs, Larry Donald, said the increases were necessary as An Post had serious financial problems.

    It has been reported that the company had asked for the price of letter postage to go up to 55 cent.

    Mr Donald said a rise of around that amount was called for.

    They have a cheek! :o


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    #2
    grumpytrousers
    Registered Users Posts: 1,884 ✭✭✭grumpytrousers


    They have a cheek!

    Not necessarily - although I can see your point.

    consider two inalienable facts

    a) less people are sending letters than before
    b) there are still a lot of people living in remote locations.

    so - taking A first. the nature of An Post is to deliver letters. That would be the collection, sorting and delivering of written communication from A to B. There isn't much room there for the dreaming up of new products/services based upon this, and the proliferation of mobile phones/texting/email has meant that where previously there were certain economies of scale at work, the fact that less people are using the service means that the unit cost of collection, sorting and delivery goes up.

    Factor in B. If you live in an urban area/housing estate, then the chances are that your postman can deliver to say 25-30 houses in an hour. maybe even more, I dunno, and thus there's a level of efficiency there.

    Consider out in the sticks. the rate of efficiency goes down considerably. If only 10 households can be delivered to in an hour, then the cost of 'delivery' has increased threefold.

    I accept that there are inevitably sloppy business practises employed by An Post at other parts of the process, but to be honest, the fact that we still want a postal service to be cheap, but aren't prepared to use it much (and thereby aren't willing to up its revenues by volume of use), and that we want a service that drops the letter to our door means that in such prices increases are one of the few ways they can up their take...


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